Laurie Anderson reading “Night Life”, new book of drawings / part 2/2

Laurie Anderson reads from her new book “Night Life” ; a collection of short descriptions of dreams with paintings to illustrate them. Experimental performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson (born June 5, 1947, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois) studied art history, her first performance art piece – a symphony played on automobile horns – was performed in 1969. In the early 1970s, she worked as an art instructor, as an art critic for magazines such as Arforum, and illustrated children’s books. 192books.com, New York, April 15, 2007. By VTV correspondent Darren Trenchard. Part 2/2.

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From the press release: “For the last year I’ve been on the road with a solo performance. Every night another theater, another hotel room. Gradually my dreams became wild, vivid, more and more relentless. Headless singing squirrels, vast empty spaces, bizarre clatterings and invasions. My own dark and private theater was slowly taking over. I began to draw these dreams literally out of self-defense. I kept the computer drawing tablet next to the bed and tried to capture them in their most raw state. After many months of drawing my dreams I was drawn into the odd language and logic of the images. Often I drew my own head in the foreground. What did that mean? Who’s watching who? Often the dreams were alternate versions of the day’s events. Sometimes they were heavily charged atmospheres, sensations, emotions. Depictions of bewilderment, ecstasy, weightlessness, abandonment, freedom.” (Laurie Anderson). Night Life is Laurie Anderson’s diary of a year of dreams. Its pages re-create each night’s mental show as a work of art, employing Anderson’s skill in theater, lyrics and narrative to investigate the workings of her mind in the languages of dreams, drawings and text.

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